Satellite technology thief is killed
A designer of electrical devices devised a new, smaller, less expensive antenna for receiving audio and video from satellites. It was — and is — a technological marvel, and worked quite well. Every time it was demonstrated people ooood and aaaahd about how small it was and how well it worked. This entrepreneur worked for a small company that was always strapped for cash and trying to raise money everywhere it could. If the truth need be known, the owners of the company were/are crooks, and were spending the money on life style and not on development.
Management was a sinkhole for money, and the owners were searching far and wide for as much money as could be found. In their search they met a fellow who said he could get tons of money from Latin America. His first stop was to Columbia to see some friends of the family who would fund up to 1 million dollars if the project worked. The money finder took a prototype of the antenna to Columbia and set it up. It didn’t work at all.
He called back to the office in the US and asked what the problem was. The owners had no idea, and were in a panic about the antenna: Had it broken, was it set up properly, etc…. They finally called the entrepreneur who designed the antenna. He patiently explained that “The antenna will not work that far south. It was tuned to one satellite, and the footprint of that satellite was western North America and that was it. It didn’t even matter if they could see the satellite. The satellite and its signal weren’t pointed at Latin America.” The money raiser never returned from Columbia and was never heard from again.
Several months later the owners of the company received a message never to come to Columbia, and never to try to steal or defraud anyone again. The owners of the company were lucky: they eventually just went to jail in the US. The money raiser is dead.
And the designer? He has found work with several more-reputable firms as a consulting engineer.
